Kids were pieces of work. Some were smelly. Some were mean. Some stole the clothing off of my Barbie doll’s back. All of these wretched beasts darted about in most unpredictable ways.
My hate-affair with children started my first day of preschool. With hair slicked back and forced into a ponytail, I kicked and screamed as my mother tried with all of her might to get away. Why would she leave me to toil with people barely out of diapers? I thought we had a good thing going on.
Even then, I knew the road ahead would be bumpy. My tiny, plaid-clad classmates gnashed their baby teeth as I “heated” plastic food on faux stoves made of plywood and aluminium. The tiny, bell-bottomed crew coveted my molded peas and carrots.
Sharing was not their strong suit. Like half of Michael Douglas’ characters, taking by force or crying was their modus operandi.
I fought these brats off to protect what was rightfully mine: a toy shopping cart filled with plastic goods claimed in the name of “I saw it first.”
Things only got worse as the years passed, with junior high being like some sort of bizarro petting zoo.
The pigs bullied the chicken and the sheep while the keepers blindly scattered feed.
The mean girls worked to transform the zoo into a slaughter house, but I was not destined for the butcher’s block.
After knocking the smack out of my junior high’s meanest pig in seventh grade, the bullies kept their distance.
No longer were my Trapper Keepers or juice cups in harm’s way.
Besides being the subject of a nerd joke here and there, I was pretty much left to mentally refine my revenge as high school began.
The “Back to the Future”-inspired day dream hatched in elementary school was to build or purchase a time machine and use said machine to win the lottery using knowledge from the future.
As a bonus, I would systematically destroy my classmates’ social lives by doing things as sinister as writing their names on bathroom walls and tinkering with their alarm clocks.
They’d chronically miss the school bus because they’d think it was 5 a.m. at 7:30 a.m. My imagination flourished.
Flash forward a few decades and I am glad time machine technology does not exist (as far as I know).
I am also glad I’ve met kids who were not my peers. Most neither smell nor steal Snickers (as far as I know).
While its true, some kids are completely horrible human beings, most others are alright to very good.
I still would never leave a rabbit in the same room as a donkey.
The donkey would grow up to be a bitter, childless millionaire with a time machine bent on destruction.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2384 or arobinson@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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